You've Got To Get One Of These!

Dear Sophie,
I hope you don't mind terribly if I use your blog as a site to write up a commercial, but I know you're a happier dog because of the Furminator, so you'll want all your friends to have one too.
Despite my sister's hearty recommendations, with dog grooming tools I was fairly happy with I saw no reason to add anything. I had a flat slicker brush, a comb, and a deshedding tool. "I didn't need no stinkin' Furminator."
I humbly and absolutely stand corrected! A couple of times a day before going out, running a brush over Sophie netted very little so, naturally, I assumed she was hanging onto her coat because of the cooler weather. This is all I had collected out of her brush for six days (left)
(yes, I save all the hair I brush out of her; just a silly thing I do). And this is what came of ONE grooming session with a Furminator (right) Unbelievable! And I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.
Yeah, they're a little on the pricey side but, after using that thing just once, I immediately went out and bought one. It's worth it! And they work wonders on short-haired dogs too. It's amazing what this thing can do. This is one time when the product does exactly what it says it'll do. Sophie and I highly recommend it!
One Week Later ... Just a week after being thoroughly Furminated, here's what we came up with when we used it againUnbelievable, but true! Now that Sophie has been well-deshedded, we'll only need to use it every three or four weeks, along with her spring-toothed rake, her mat-splitter, and her comb. Sadly, it took me four and a half years to learn to properly groom my long-haired dog, but this is a fortunate example of better late than never.

Family Fun in Montana

Dear Sophie,
We've been home from Montana a little more than a week. Sorry it has taken so long to get this posted; it has just been one thing after another all week!
I had a wonderful time there, and I know you did too,even as hard as you worked. We had so many places to go, many things to do, and so much to accomplish, but just visiting with Ginny and Dan and Courtney, and Doug when he came home from visiting his dad ... that was the most fun.
For starters, you got to try on a guide dog harness and take me for a walk with it but, alas, with no support, it wasn't what we needed. But it did assure us the harness you're using is exactly what we need.
We got to tag along to three different places one day while Addie worked on her geocaching badge for Dog Scouts. For one of them, we went on a little hike up a trail in the deep woods near Strawberry Lake on a geocache adventure … in bear country!! Talk about an adrenaline rush, just thinking about it!
The best thing, though, was at the end of each day when we got to sit around and talk and laugh and visit and catch up.
We watched the weather reports pretty closely all week hoping for some snow, but all we got was rain. Then right before we were to take off out of Kalispell, there it was ... your first live snowfall! I just had to take you outside to be a part of it!There you were, fully harnessed and ready to fly out and you wanted to roll in the snow! But wasn't it fun? Now when we take you up to Flagstaff to play in the snow this winter, you might realize where the snow came from.
Oh, my sweet Sophie, you're truly a character, but you take such good care of me. Maybe you can't fix everything that's broken in my brain, but you give me a quality of life I couldn't imagine having without you. Thanks for one more of, Lord willing, many happy outings together.